In conventional Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)-based communication of continuous data streams (e.g., video streams) where the data receiver is separated from the data transmitter by one or more link segments on which data can be damaged (i.e., distorted), the overall communication line throughput suffers due to the fact that the longer a TCP packet is, the more likely the data is distorted. In certain data receivers such as cell phones receiving video streams, when a TCP packet for a continuous data stream is distorted (i.e., any number of bits are missing or the bits indicate an incorrect value), the entire TCP packet is dropped and a retransmission is requested. That retransmission, in turn, is also not guaranteed to be free of distortion, so subsequent retransmissions may be needed. The need for retransmissions and subsequent retransmissions lead to unacceptable data delivery delays (e.g., a delay in the outputting of a video data stream onto a display on the data receiver). In cell phone data communication, the quality of the wireless link is inferior and varies over time, leading to a substantial image delay in a video stream (e.g., a delay of several dozen seconds). A shorter TCP packet decreases the likelihood of data distortion, but increases overhead costs of network bandwidth. The overhead costs increase because shortening the packet length shortens the data portion of the packet, but does not shorten the length of a packet's header. A typical TCP packet length is about 1500 bytes with about 50 bytes being allocated to the header. In this typical case, the overhead is insignificant, but the chance of the packet being damaged is very high if the communication line is noisy. Thus, there exists a need to overcome at least one of the preceding deficiencies and limitations of the related art.